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Killer InnovationsKiller Innovations is a source of tools, tricks and lessons about creativity and innovation. The goal of the podcast is to show the listeners that being creative and innovative is a skill that can be learned.

April 18, 2009

The following points are a result of five years of
research to understand the actions which any group leader (or line
manager) can take to help people (members, beneficiaries, and stakeholders)
become self-motivated, passionate, enthusiastic, and expert in the groups
efforts and objectives. In an enterprise this may be called employee
engagement, and the beneficiaries are customers, but these points also apply to
leading groups in education, civic, government, religious, and family.

* Every person arrives and contributes to your group
(and all groups) at their own current level of engagement. Each person's
own level of engagement, is influenced by their past and present group experiences.You can easily assess (without measurements) this engagement on a continuum
from 'fully engaged' to 'actively disengaged'. Everyone (employees,
customers, and stakeholders) can and will move on this continuum, no one is
static. As a group leader you can help each person move towards 'full
engagement'. Even those that arrive fully engaged are most likely unaware as it
is not taught in any curriculum.

* No one can motivate/engage another person!
One can only help another learn by experience the fulfillment of
self-motivation/engagement (involvement with heart and mind). You
cannot feel 'personally' responsible to motivate/engage another
person as this only creates frustration and helplessness. Rather, create the environment
to help others engage themselves. Also your enthusiasm, self-motivation, and passion serve as an example and inspiration to others.

* To sustain motivation/engagement the activity
itself must provide feedback! Engaged
persons are re-engaged by the activity and people in it, more so than by
colleagues and supervisors. You must focus on the activity first or you will
lose sight of your purpose as activities are aligned with the group's
purpose.

This may seem counter intuitive as group members learn as early as the school system to
receive feedback on their actions from colleagues and supervisors through systems to 'manage' the groups efforts.
For the 'leadership' of soft skills such
as enthusiasm and reflection one must also provide feedback from the activity itself. This will make your tasks simpler,
enjoyable, and more successful.

* Any group leader can provide people feedback
from the activity itself by helping them ask (mostly non-verbally) the critical
questions for "How are we doing?" - both individually and
collectively. Focus on the activity first and the people within the
activity secondly to allow everyone to participate in the groups learning
experiences and understanding. The activity focus reduces the
personalities and builds a sense of purpose. Most communications and learning is non-verbal or "informal".

Our research determined five actions a group leader can do
with (not to) their group members to initiate this process for
self-motivation/engagement. Note that a process is merely a set of steps
(or I like to think of it as a recipe) for creating something and, unlike a
program or system, does not need to come from the top but can be inserted
anywhere within an organization--even in a single group as a trial.

Begin and end with "Thanking"
everyone. This provides recognition and appreciation
through daily operations.

February 09, 2009

The following points are a result of five years of
research to understand the actions which any group leader (or line
manager) can take to help people (members, beneficiaries, and stakeholders)
become self-motivated, passionate, enthusiastic, and expert in the groups
efforts and objectives. In an enterprise this may be called employee
engagement, and the beneficiaries are customers, but these points also apply to
leading groups in education, civic, government, religious, and family.

* Every person arrives and contributes to your group
(and all groups) at their own current level of engagement. Each person's
own level of engagement, is influenced by their past and present group experiences.You can easily assess (without measurements) this engagement on a continuum
from 'fully engaged' to 'actively disengaged'. Everyone (employees,
customers, and stakeholders) can and will move on this continuum, no one is
static. As a group leader you can help each person move towards 'full
engagement'. Even those that arrive fully engaged are most likely unaware as it
is not taught in any curriculum.

* No one can motivate/engage another person!
One can only help another learn by experience the fulfillment of
self-motivation/engagement (involvement with heart and mind). You
cannot feel 'personally' responsible to motivate/engage another
person as this only creates frustration and helplessness. Rather, create the environment
to help others engage themselves. Also your enthusiasm, self-motivation, and passion serve as an example and inspiration to others.

* To sustain motivation/engagement the activity
itself must provide feedback! Engaged
persons are re-engaged by the activity and people in it, more so than by
colleagues and supervisors. You must focus on the activity first or you will
lose sight of your purpose as activities are aligned with the group's
purpose.

This may seem counter intuitive as group members learn as early as the school system to
receive feedback on their actions from colleagues and supervisors through systems to 'manage' the groups efforts.
For the 'leadership' of soft skills such
as enthusiasm and reflection one must also provide feedback from the activity itself. This will make your tasks simpler,
enjoyable, and more successful.

* Any group leader can provide people feedback
from the activity itself by helping them ask (mostly non-verbally) the critical
questions for "How are we doing?" - both individually and
collectively. Focus on the activity first and the people within the
activity secondly to allow everyone to participate in the groups learning
experiences and understanding. The activity focus reduces the
personalities and builds a sense of purpose. Most communications and learning is non-verbal or "informal".

Our research determined five actions a group leader can do
with (not to) their group members to initiate this process for
self-motivation/engagement. Note that a process is merely a set of steps
(or I like to think of it as a recipe) for creating something and, unlike a
program or system, does not need to come from the top but can be inserted
anywhere within an organization--even in a single group as a trial.

Begin and end with "Thanking"
everyone. This provides recognition and appreciation
through daily operations.

February 05, 2009

6 Principles of Frontline Leadership to Motivate-Inspire-Involve any Group or Team

Six principles for winning the hearts and minds of members of any group or team:

Recognition

Participation

Reflection

Involvement

Dialogue

Appreciation

Leading these principles using the practice's process of five daily activities respectively:

Thanking - to recognize everyone

Inviting - customers to let us know "How are we doing?"

Asking - the critical questions for the group's success

Feedback - from group member's own daily activities

Sharing - assessments to continue a customer dialogue

Thanking to begin the process again - letting everyone know their efforts are appreciated

These six principles hold true in regardless of whether you are managing or leading. For instance, senior managers use the same principles to manage "what" future actions the enterprise needs to take and the programs for execution. The following demonstration would be typical for most enterprises:

First recognize which teams need to provide what services, products and markets.

Management then invites participation in "How are we doing?" through surveys, interviews, focus groups, etc.

They reflect on the critical issues which will determine their success in the future.

Design programs and systems based on the feedback they receive to involve everyone in the execution of daily operations.

Supervisors encourage suggestions and discussion on the success of the execution through daily operations. Try to create a dialogue about customers.

Express appreciation to associates as well as customers and partners for desired results.

The actions to implement these principles are executed from the top-down through programs and systems to maintain the all-important structure and discipline any enterprise must have to succeed. The practice's five actions for leadership listed above compliment these programs with a leadership skill for the people-part of the enterprise. Winning the hearts and minds of associates as well as customers and partners. A practice to lead the "how" to maintain results from the programs and systems.

To learn more about continuing to involve everyone (associates, partners, and customers) with their hearts and minds view the "cycle of engagement" webpage.

"If you give a team member customer feedback, you focus them for a day. If you teach a team member how to 'ask' for customer feedback, you focus them for a lifetime!".

February 04, 2009

How-to WOW! Customers Who Bring Concerns or Complaints to Your Service Team

Service teams, beginning with their leaders, must recognize that, overall,customer complaints and concerns represent the most vital feedback the team can receive.Only a very small percentage of customers who experience dissatisfaction will bother to let you know about it.These customers see the relationship as a win-win and want to be “partners” withyour team !

The challenge is for team leadersto listen, satisfy,correct the present situation, thank the customer, assure future expectations, correct cause of problem for future, andfollow through to monitor corrections on a continual basis!Quite a challenge, especially with all the other operational challenges presented daily.The only chance team leaders have to meet this challenge is help.Help in the form ofteam unity in focusing on customers’needs and expectations.The underlying base to maintain this focus must be a recognition of and appreciation for the customer.This article offersa “ best practice”, with a forty year track record,for support ofthis recognition by sharingfeedback andthanking customers daily at the points of service/product delivery.

February 03, 2009

As Editor of both "Fast Company" and now "Business Week" Magazines John Byrne has become one of the most astute observers on today's business scene. In this insightful podcast for frontline leaders he is interviewed by David Maister of the "Passion, People and Principles" weblog.

The two discuss behaviors such as * Managers as leaders, *Building employee trust, * Valuing intution as a manager, * Being a manager vs developing managers, and * How to maintain passion and excitement

February 02, 2009

I love this blog postby George Ambler of "The Practice of Leadership" weblog. The importance of learning can never be underestimated for without learning you cannot continue development, betterment, or challenge either as a group or individual.

January 28, 2009

The book addresses the new paradigm for Marketing of an integrated Mind-Brain-Body-Society between managers and customers. While the focus is on top management who must make long-term market decisions there is a lot that middle and frontline managers can learn and take from this knowledge

Our objective through the practice "Propel Frontline Leaders" is to simply give team leaders and frontline managers a process, set of actions, to lead this non-verbal portion of thought, emotion, learning, and communication. A career skill and enterprise tool to lead relationships, the "people" part, for follow-through (continuation) of their existing management systems or structure.

Yes, we believe, the next frontier in the workplace is to lead relationships in daily operations. Using leadership activities (processes) to complement and continue (not change) the management of relationships using programs and systems. We call it, CRL (Customer Relationship Leadership) activities to complement your CRM activities.

January 27, 2009

A concept presented well some years ago by Ronald A. Heifetz in his book Leadership Without Easy Answers.

When discussing leading without authority, Heifetz notes that leadership means engaging people to make progress on the adaptive problems they face. Because making progress on adaptive problems requires learning, the task of leadership consists of choreographing and directing learning processes in the organization or community.

A concept presented well some years ago by Ronald A. Heifetz in his book Leadership Without Easy Answers. Ronald Heifetz is one of my favorite authors on the subject of leadership and has continued his teachings with a more recent book Leadership on the Line. He presents views in a common sense approach as represented in a great quote "Attention is the currency of leadership." Fast Company Magazine had a good article on Dr. Heifetz "The Leader of the Future."

Good news! for those team leaders who may feel, because they are not members of "management" that they cannot be effective leaders in daily operations/activities.

Heifetz also points out the constraints of authority suggest that there may also be advantages to leading without it:

* First, the absence of authority enables one to deviate from the norms of authoritative decision making. Instead of providing answers that soothe, one can more readily raise questions that disturb* Second, leading without or beyond ones authority permits focusing on a single issue* Third, operating with little or no authority places one closer to the detailed experiences of some of the stakeholders in the situation. One may lose the larger perspective but gain the fine grain of people’s hopes, pains, values, habits, and history. One has frontline information.

January 26, 2009

Bob Thompson, the founder of CRMGuru.com published this article online. Everyone who leads a group in providing customers with products and/or services would be well advised to read it.

Bob asks an important question......"why doesn't CRM improve customer relationships from the customer point of view?"

The article goes on to point out that "CEM is concerned with all customer interactions, not just those that lend themselves to automation. And it deals with the customer's perception of value, which has both functional—"Did it do what it was supposed to do?"—and emotional—"Did I enjoy how I was treated?"—components."

So true! All frontline leaders whether they are in management or not must understand that in daily operations it is the 'experiences' which form the foundations for continued 'relationships'. And that the relationships will continue to provide the experiences! This true between and among customers, associates, and partners alike.

'Frontline Leadership' Educational Practice

If you would like to keep
everyone in your group involved and self-motivated you have come
to the right place. An individual career skill to engage
associates, customers, and partners alike. A practice to continue
learning!

Now at last,
a course for anyone regardless of age, experience, or vocation to learn a skill
for leading a group. Whether it is a setting in education, religious,
civil, community, or workplace. A simple process of 5
action steps you dowith (not to) your group members.
Based on a 'best practice' of over a half-century, for the people-part of daily
activities to continue learning, focus, and commitments.

In February 2005 George Reavis initiated the
ThankingCustomers.com Frontline Leadership Educational Program. The
express purpose is to help anyone who either currently is or plans to lead a
group of people toward a common goal. Providing a practice to lead the
people-part of daily activities. Leading the involvement and
self-motivation of associates to compliment and continue, not change, existing
procedural activities. George defines six
principles for frontline leadership and a process of five actions a
frontline leader can practice to achieve those principles.